March 2018

In the desert nation of Oman, rocks from Earth’s mantle, usually inaccessible to humans, have been thrust to the surface in the mountainous Samail Ophiolite. Among other unusual qualities, these rocks naturally take up vast amounts of atmospheric carbon and convert it to solid carbonate. In the first project of its kind, Lamont scientists join an international team, taking deep cores and performing experiments to assess the possibility of storing human-generated CO2 emissions here and in similar formations across the world. This is one of more than fifty Lamont field expeditions to take place this year.

Our
2018 Field Guide traces how, on every continent and in every ocean, Lamont scientists are continuing to explore our planet.

Snow plays an important role in Earth’s climate. Yet, there’s a lot we still don’t know about snow, particularly along the east coast. Marco Tedesco, who studies snow and ice at Lamont is leading an investigation into the properties of snow in the eastern U.S. Tedesco – in partnership with WNYC,
a New York public radio station – is asking for help from citizen scientists to contribute to data collection to the study.

In a new study, researchers have mapped out a stew of pharmaceuticals along the Hudson River. The team says that, in some places, levels may be sufficiently high to affect fish and other aquatic life. This is not the first study to find pharmaceuticals in the Hudson, but it is the first to look at a wide
variety and chart their distribution.

Our scientists occasionally share their “on the ground” field expedition experiences. Graduate student Kyle Frischkorn from Lamont’s Microbial Oceanography Group, working as part of the Dyhrman Lab, has written about a sea-going study of the microbes in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre.